On the face of it, tennis is a pretty simple game – you have to take it in turns to hit a ball and make it land within a group of lines. It is also quite cheap to play – once you have a ball and a racquet, you can play in a T-shirt and shorts or skirt. None of this stuff is particularly costly, unless you go for well-known names.

The rules are low in number and simple too. However, there are some rules and a knowledge of these rules will permit you to garner more enjoyment from the game whether you propose playing it or just watching it.

Most top tennis matches are played by two people: one in each team. However, in amateur games lots of people like to play in doubles, which means having two players on each team. Mixed doubles means men and women playing together – one man and one woman per team.

Finding good tennis courts that have an effective tennis court lighting system is difficult. Most courts that even have lights at all have either a poor design or an ineffective implementation.

Many light installers don’t even fully understand what it takes to achieve good lighting for a competitive tennis match. The standards dictated by the ATP tour are high, but can be used as a reasonable comparison even for players at a recreational level.

The easiest definition of the standard is to remember that professionals should play in a minimum of 70 foot-candles of lighting. The foot-candle is a measure of the intensity of light inside a surface of a 1 foot radius sphere. This means that the illumination of the court should achieve, as closely and as uniformly possibly, at least 70 foot-candles. To measure how well the light is distributed, a series of measurements should be done around the court at different locations.

When I was a young boy of about 12 years of age, my mother wanted me to learn tennis, so she got me a tennis racquet for Christmas so that I might take up the sport. There had been many options in terms of choosing a tennis racquet. My mother told me later and it had been fairlyconfusing.

My mother had gone to a sports shop and chosen one racquet out of the three that I suppose were in her price range at that time. But today, choosing a racquet can be a very hard job. Brands, materials, technologies – they all add to the difficulty of making a choice.

The numerous options one has today in a sports store can often be disconcerting. So what items should be taken into account when picking a tennis racket?

To start with, focus on the grip size. Kids would probably find that up to size four would suit them best while adults may go up to 4 and five-eighths of an inch in order to get a better grip of the tennis racquet.

The very first recorded mention of tennis was in the fourteenth Cycle of plays called ‘The Second Shepherds? Play’ from the Wakefield Yorkshire dramatist known simply as The Wakefield Master. In scene VIII Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur?s round table plays tennis with a band of giants.

However, this would have been the medieval form of tennis known as real tennis which had evolved more than three centuries from an earlier ball game played in France around the 12th century.

This involved hitting the ball with the bare hand or later a glove and is believed to have started with monks playing the game in monastery cloisters, judging by the construction and appearance of some of the early courts.

The game quickly proved to be a hit among European royals and in England was taken up by Henry V in the early fifteenth century. A hundred years later Henry VIII made the biggest impact as a young monarch, playing the game with enthusiasm at Hampton Court on a court he built in 1530.

A tennis ball is very distinctive and are used by millions of children and adults all over the world for playing tennis, of course, but many, many other less formal games as well. They are not only the right size for tennis, presumably anyway at 2.7 inches or 6.7 centimetres in diameter, but they also fit neatly into a hand or a dog’s mouth. Therefore people use them for playing catch, for various games of softball like rounders and for throwing for the dog to retrieve.

While I was a youngster, all tennis balls were white, but now you would be very hard pressed indeed to find a white one if, if indeed it is at all possible. Nowadays, all tennis balls are day-glow colours like yellow, green and orange. Presumably this modification was made for the purpose of visibility on the TV screen.

The word ‘tennis’ comes from the French – ‘Tenez’ (pronounced ‘teney’), which meant ‘Take up Position’ or simply ‘Start’. The origins of tennis were almost certainly well over a thousand years ago, when it was played by monks. The racquet or racket was the flat of the hand and the ball was wooden.

If you already take part in tennis, then I imagine that you already know what tennis players wear, so this article is aimed at those individuals who would like to buy tennis kit for a loved one for a special occasion. After all, it is not as straightforward as it seems to obtain sports wear for the participant of a sport you understand nothing about.

There is a certain picture we are inclined to associate with a tennis player: white Polo top with shorts or skirt and matching shoes. They are trendy and stylish, comfortable and characteristic at the same time. Items of tennis clothes often signify a great deal to people who are not just sports fans. If the person you are shopping for is a tennis aficionado, tennis attire becomes a great gift that can also be quite reasonably priced despite the rumors that it costs a great deal.

It is highly unlikely that people will not have heard of the French Open tennis championship, because it is a competition which is an annual topic of conversation. In French the name of the competition is ‘Les Internationaux de France de Roland Garros’ or ‘Tournoi de Roland Garros’. This tournament, which lasts for roughly a fortnight is held in Paris at the Roland Garros Stadium, from which it got its name.

The French Open is one of the most publicised and broadcast sports events in the entire world of sport and many VIPs attend it. The attendees are fanatics who wait with baited breath on every stroke, especially when there is a tight battle between the two teams, doing their best to win. Even TV viewers actually get a feeling of being there live.

The French Open tennis championship comes in second on the annual schedule of the Grand Slam tournaments and its history goes back to the year of 1891 when it became an international competition. At that time it was named the ‘International Championship of Tennis of France’ or ‘Championat de France International de Tennis’ in French.

The hard-hitting, erratic, net-rushing player is a creature of impulse. There is no real strategy to his/her game, no understanding of your game. He will make brilliant coups on the spur of the moment, largely by instinct; but there is no, mental power of consistent thinking. It is an interesting type of character.

The really dangerous player is the one who mixes his/her strategy from back to fore court at the direction of an ever-alert mind. This/her is the player to study and learn from. He is a player with a definite intention. A player who has an answer to every query you present him in your game. He is the most subtle antagonist in the world of tennis. He is from the school of Brookes. Second only to him is the player of dogged determination that sets his/her mind on one strategy and sticks to it, bitterly, fiercely fighting to the end, with never a thought of changing.

Tennis psychology is nothing more than understanding the workings of your opponent’s mind, and gauging the effect of your own game on his/her head and also understanding the psychological effects resulting from the different external causes on your own mind.

However, it is also true that you no one can be a successful psychologist of others without first understanding his own mental processes. Therefore, you must study the effect on yourself of the same thing occurring under various circumstances. This is because people react differently in different moods and under different conditions.

You must realize the effect on your game of the resulting annoyance, pleasure, bewilderment, or whatever other form your reaction is. Does it improve your prowess? If so, go for it, but never give it to your opponent. Does it deprive you of concentration? If so, either remove the reason, or if that is not possible, strive to ignore it.

I expect that this initial effort of mine into the world of letters will find a place with both novices and experts in the tennis world. I am trying to interest the student of the game by a somewhat prolonged discussion of match play, which I trust will cast a new light on the game of tennis.

I will turn to the beginner in my opening article and write of certain matters which are second nature to the experienced tennis player. The best tennis equipment is not much use to the novice even if he really is trying to succeed. Nevertheless, one has to purchase good quality; it is a saving eventually, as high quality material far outlasts poor quality equipment.

It is vital always to wear tennis apparel when playing tennis. The question of selecting a tennis racquet is a much more serious decision. I do not like to force a certain brand of racquet upon any player, since all the famous makes are of excellent quality. However, the weight, balance, and size of the handle are the really important considerations when selecting a racquet frame, while good stringing is essential to obtain optimum results.